The McGill Faculty of Engineering is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in bio-engineering, bioresource, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, mechanical, materials, mining, and software engineering. The faculty also comprises the School of Architecture and the School of Urban Planning, and teaches courses in bio-resource engineering (Faculty of Agriculture) and biomedical engineering (Faculty of Medicine) at the master's level.
History
1855–1900 Dawson Lectures (1855)
Thirty years before the construction of Engineering's two original edifices; McGill had been offering lectures in Applied Sciences. This series of lectures was started in 1855 by William Dawson, a renowned geologist and McGill's fifth principal which was offered within the Faculty of Arts until the formation of the Department of Applied Sciences in 1871. Dawson accepted the offer, but he traveled to Britain first and while there delivered several papers at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Eventually, the lectures formed the core of a two-year curriculum leading to a Diploma in Civil Engineering.
First Engineering Buildings (1893)
For the first time in the history of McGill, buildings are constructed specifically to house engineers. The imposing Macdonald Engineering Building and the more modest Workman Technical Shops were both designed by architect Sir Andrew Taylor and his partner, William Gordon. Featuring a symmetrical Italian Renaissance facade and a Montreal limestone exterior, the five-storey Macdonald building is equipped to meet every conceivable need. Among the facilities housed on its five floors are an apparatus museum, a library, a forge, a foundry, and a dynamo and engine room.
1900–1999 Fire of the Macdonald Building and Rebuilding (1907–1909)
On April 5, 1907, the Macdonald Engineering Building burns. Everything in it, except the contents of the ground floor laboratories, is destroyed. Fortunately, the fire doors that were built in the adjoining Workman Technical Shops (commonly referred to as the Workman Wing) do their job, keeping the building intact and sparing it from significant damage. Less than a week earlier the old Medical Building had burned down. Some of the stone salvaged from this fire was used to add a fourth floor to the Workman shops. The Faculty's sponsor, Sir William Macdonald, again stepped forward, this time volunteering to contribute to build a new structure on the foundation of its predecessor. Percy Nobbs, Director of McGill's School of Architecture is asked to design and build the new structure. The University and Macdonald both stress to him the importance of function and fire resistance. The carved phoenix rising from the flames is one of the few ornaments on a building constructed specifically for fire-proof functionality. Although the phoenix is easy to overlook, the Macdonald Engineering Building is a mainstay on the east side of McGill's downtown campus.
Faculty of Engineering Launched (1931)
The Faculty of Applied Science becomes the Faculty of Engineering in 1931. It offers two degrees – Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) and Master of Engineering (MEng). McGill also introduces a completely revised curriculum in Chemical Engineering, to be administered by the Department of Chemistry.
Dawson College (1945)
Dawson College was opened in 1945 to accommodate the greatly increased enrollment due to the return of students from the armed services and was housed at the R.C.A.F base at St-Jean, Quebec. All first year science and engineering students were transferred there. The number of students enrolled, mainly veterans, reached a peak of 1687 in January 1947. The College was closed in 1950. Dawson College was administered by a Vice-Principal, Dawson College and by various other McGill staff members who undertook duties such as that of Assistant Bursar and Secretary.
First Woman to Graduate From Engineering (1946)
Mary Blair Jackson (later Mary Fowler) graduates from Mechanical Engineering, McGill's first woman engineering (non-Architecture) graduate. She would go on to become a pilot officer at RCAF training command headquarters in Trenton, Ontario, where she conducted statistical work connected with the training of ground crews.
The J.W. McConnell Building Is Completed (1958)
Named in honour of J.W. McConnell, a Governor of the University from 1927 to 1958, the new four-storey McConnell Engineering Building is officially dedicated by Chancellor Ray Edwin Powell on October 6, 1958. The new building doubles the Faculty's space and provides much needed facilities for graduate programs.
Center for Intelligent Machines (1985)
With a grant from the Québec Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Science, four researchers – Martin Levin, Steve Zucker, Pierre Bélanger, and George Zames (BEng Engineering Physics 1954)– form McRCIM (the McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines), now known as the Centre for Intelligent Machines, to study intelligent systems. CIM seeks to advance the state of knowledge in such domains as robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, computer vision, systems and control theory, and speech recognition.
The M.H. Wong Building Reaches Completion (1997)
The new M.H. Wong Building – the first new major academic construction on McGill's downtown campus in almost 20 years – is erected around the Foster Radiation Laboratory (built in 1948). The building, which became the new home of the Departments of Chemical and Mining, Metals, and Materials Engineering cost close to $34 million, $12 million of which came from private donations. The largest of these was a gift of $8 million from the family and friends of the late Man Hung (Jimmy) Wong (BArch 1981). Another anonymous donor from Hong Kong contributed $1.9 million in honour of the late Chemical Engineering professor J.B. Philips.
2000–Present Philanthropist Lorne Trottier Makes Transformative Gift (2000)
Quebec entrepreneur Lorne Trottier announced a gift of $5 million to help build a new Information Technology undergraduate teaching facility at McGill, estimated at a cost of $17 million. The government of Quebec announced that it will provide $7 million to complete the Lorne M. Trottier Building, prompting Trottier to double his gift to $10 million. In 2003, the Lorne M. Trottier Building opened in September. The building houses six floors of advanced teaching laboratories, interactive learning rooms and meeting spaces and is equipped with all of the latest high-tech equipment.
School of Architecture Receives Landmark Gift (2017)
Following a donation from McGill alumnus Peter Guo-hua Fu, the School of Architecture was renamed the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture. The donation supports architectural education and research at McGill and established the Peter Guo-hua Fu Fellowships. The fellowships are awarded on the basis of academic merit to graduate students entering or enrolled in the School, with preference given to citizens of China.
Departments and Schools Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics The Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics (est. 1871) offers programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Department currently has twenty-two full-time faculty members. In addition, the department enjoyed great relations with corporate partners and has many Faculty Lecturers, Associate Professors, and researchers working with students in the department. The Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics has consistently ranked in the top hundred Civil Engineering schools worldwide and top 3 in Canada.
There are approximately four hundred undergraduate and eighty graduate students in the department, of whom over half are women and over one-third are from outside Canada as of 2018. Broad programs of study are available that offer specialized courses in all areas of civil engineering. Facilities include state-of-the-art teaching, research, and computing laboratories.
Department of Mining and Materials Engineering Established in 1871, the mining engineering program is the oldest in Canada, and oldest of its kind in North America. In the mid 1960s mining engineering at universities in Canada was suffering. Toronto closed its school; McGill had only one undergraduate student and its Professor of Mining was due to retire.Frost, Stanley Brice (1984). McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning, Volume II, 1895-1971. McGill - Queens University Press. p. 347. In 1964 John Ross Bradfield, Chairman of Noranda Inc., was asked to form a committee to study and resolve the problem.Bradfield, John. The Canadian Mineral Industry Education Foundation. As cited by Frost Op Cit. The result was the raising of funds to help finance a Chair of Mining at McGill and to persuade Professor Frank T. M. White to come from the University of Queensland in Australia to take the position of Chairman of the Department of Mining Engineering and Applied Geophysics. Professor White initiated a program that graduated a large cohort of postgraduate engineers, many of whom served to rebuild the educational capacity of mining throughout Canada.White F. Miner with a Heart of Gold: biography of a mineral science and engineering educator. Friesen Press, Victoria. 2020. ISBN 978-1-5255-7765-9 (Hardcover) 978-1-5255-7766-6 (Paperback) 978-1-5255-7767-3 (eBook) This, together with the contribution that he made in promoting mining education, resolved the crisis. Professor White died in 1971; McGill University and the Canadian Mineral Industry Education Foundation set up an award, the F.T.M.White Scholarship, to honour him for his outstanding contribution to mining education in Canada.Canadian Mineral Industry Education Foundation. F.T.M. White Scholarship https://www.cmief.ca/f-t-m-white-scholarship Retrieved June 27, 2021.
Department of Chemical Engineering Over one hundred years of chemical engineering at McGill has evolved through several distinct stages. The chemical engineering curriculum, established at McGill in 1908, produced its first bachelor's degree graduate in 1911. Today, collectively, 17 members of the academic staff conduct research programs in almost all areas of modern chemical engineering, drawing upon theoretical, computational and experimental methodologies.
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) The department of Electrical & Computer Engineering is located in McGill's downtown Montreal campus with a student body of 900 undergraduate students, 350 graduate students, 20 staff members and 40 faculty members. ECE offers three undergraduate degrees in the areas of Electrical (including Honours), Computer and Software Engineering, all accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB).
Department of Bioengineering Established in 2012, the Department of Bioengineering is the newest department to join McGill University's Faculty of Engineering. McGill researchers from nearly all Faculty units, including seven Canada Research Chairs and many colleagues in the Faculties of Medicine, Science, and Agriculture and Environmental Sciences are actively involved in various areas of Bioengineering. Within the Department, the faculty are focusing on three major directions: biological materials and mechanics; bio molecular and cellular engineering; and biomedical, diagnostics and high throughput screening.
Department of Mechanical Engineering The department of Mechanical Engineering is located in McGill's main downtown Montreal campus and is one of the primary engineering departments.
School of Urban Planning